Williams: Rugby is in need of an overhaul
AUSTRALIAN rugby coach and outspoken pundit Matt Williams has called for a drastic overhaul of rugby’s points-scoring.
And he has branded the scrum an ‘overly complicated, time-wasting, bag of manure’ in an article entitled: ‘Time-wasting and stoppages are making rugby unwatchable’.
Writing in a column in the Irish Times, former Scotland coach Williams blasted teams and coaches for employing negative, time-wasting tactics at scrum time and then panned ‘clueless officials’ for letting players get away with it.
He called on the pointsscoring system to be changed in order to encourage positive play.
“If we want more tries, reward the points for scoring tries by lifting their value to seven points,” he wrote.
“To discourage the endless time wasted from shots at goal, reduce the value of penalties down to two points.
“Drop-goals must be reduced to one point to make them almost an irrelevance.
“A points-scoring system that rewards the entertaining and discourages time-wasting and endless shots at penalties is imperative.”
Williams, who spent a season with Swansea in the 1980s, made his name as a coach with New South Wales and Leinster before accepting the Scottish job in 2003.
He added: “The current stewards of rugby – that is the coaches, players, referees and legislators – should remember that they do not own the game.
“Their task is to nurture the game and pass it on to future generations in a better shape than they found it.
“Today under their stewardship, on their shift, the endless stoppages and negativity their leadership is producing is failing us all.”